Melbourne Launch of the Benenson Society....the pro life alternative to Amnesty International
The April 2007 decision of the International Executive of Amnesty International to adopt a pro abortion policy forced many pro life supporters to withdraw from the organization.
At the time of the decision, Cardinal Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, warned Amnesty International that it had disqualified itself as a defender of human rights. Here in Australia, Jesuit priest Father Chris Middleton, School Principal of St Aloysius College in Sydney, whose pleas to AI to resist such a policy had fallen on deaf ears, decided to give pro life opponents of the human rights abuse of prisoners of conscience, torture, kidnapping and "disappearances", an alternative to Amnesty International. He founded the Benenson Society, named after Peter Benenson, the Catholic founder of Amnesty International.
The Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese's Office for Justice and Peace is pleased to invite you to commemorate this International Human Rights Day with the Melbourne launch of the Benenson Society by Father Tony Kerin, Episcopal Vicar for Justice. The Society aims to provide all people with the opportunity to be involved in the promotion and defence of human rights. It intends to lobby governments on behalf of prisoners of conscience, to work for the abolition of torture and the death penalty.
International Human Rights Day will be marked with an address by the Hon. Clovis Alidor Mwamba Member of Parliament, Congo, (in exile) journalist, author, victim of torture, campaigner for democracy, human rights and rule of law.
Thursday 10 December 2009, 2.00 p.m. - 3.00 p.m at the Knox Room, Thomas Carr Centre, 278 Victoria Parade Melbourne.
by Denise M Cameron for Pro Life Victoria (Inc.)
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